


Palm Sunday

by BrightBlueInk



Category: Chrno Crusade
Genre: Bonding, Christianity, Early in Canon, Easter, Gen, Harm to Children, Holidays, Implied/Referenced Character Death, One Shot, Religion, Tea, learning about humans, the Bible is really weird if you didn't grow up with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23354521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightBlueInk/pseuds/BrightBlueInk
Summary: It's Chrono's first Easter at the Order, and Rosette struggles to explain it to him.Warning for a brief, violent flashback and some brief descriptions of grief and depression (because it's from Chrono's POV). Otherwise wholesome? Or as wholesome as a discussion about crucifixion can be?
Relationships: Chrono & Rosette Christopher
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Palm Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> Juuust to reiterate, while this is mostly meant to be wholesome, being the angst whore I am Chrono does have a brief PTSD flashback to his traumatic backstory and dwells a bit on his depression. If that's something you don't want to read about for any reason, feel free to back out! Otherwise this is, hopefully, cute? If a bit bittersweet?
> 
> Also thanks to Junes for giving me the idea of writing about Chrono's first Easter! And actually pushing me to write!

Chrono could tell Rosette was sulking as soon as she rapped on the window. And that meant she was going to be even more stubborn than normal. He sighed, and opened the window as quietly as possible. “Rosette, didn’t chapel just end?” he whispered, trying and failing to sound like he was unhappy she was there. “You’re going to be caught, there’s too many people around.”

“Nobody’s going to catch me!” Rosette pushed Chrono aside and climbed through the window, nearly knocking over a microscope on the Elder’s work table as she did. “And I don’t care if they do! Sister Kate is such a wet blanket, ugh.”

Chrono sighed and closed the window behind her. As soon as the window was closed, the stench of chemicals flooded his senses again. It was one of the drawbacks of staying in the Elder’s cottage as a “test subject,” along with the tests, the mess, and the cramped quarters. Chrono did appreciate how much the Elder was going out of his way to keep him comfortable and safe, but it would be easier if his sense of smell wasn’t stronger than humans.

While Chrono was wrinkling his nose, Rosette was already shoving some notebooks off of a chair to sit on.

“Hey! Rosette, don’t! He was working on those!”

“I know these aren’t organized, he won’t notice.”

Chrono couldn’t argue that. “Well, yeah, but...I really don’t want to mess this place up while he’s gone.”

“It’ll be fine, I know you’ll clean it up later.”

The demon huffed and rolled his eyes. He was starting to think that he was spoiling her too much. Aion got coddled by their minders growing up, and look how  _ he  _ turned out.

Chrono shoved that thought back in the dark room in his mind with the other memories of Aion and the Sinners and locked it shut, quickly shuffling over to a counter to plug in the electric kettle. “Mmhmm. So, what’s wrong?”

Rosette let out a quick, high, unnerving giggle that Chrono had recently figured out meant she was about to lie. “Wrong? Nothings wrong! I just wanted to see you!”

“You never come over this early unless you’re bothered by something.”

“That’s not true!”

“No?” Chrono gave her a side eye, then opened the cupboard where the mugs were. Or, where they were supposed to be. Chrono frowned. “Don’t tell me they’re all dirty again,” he muttered under his breath.

“Nothing’s wrong!” Rosette snapped. 

“Rosette, hush, we’re not that far from the chapel! Do you want to get in trouble again?”

“I don’t care if I get in trouble! This isn’t fair!” 

Rosette’s rant served as a background to Chrono’s search for clean mugs. Not in with the pans. Not hidden behind the canned fruit. Not in the sink, to Chrono’s dismay. He tried to keep his tone even, even as he was considering saving a dirty mug when he found it to throw at the Elder’s head once he was back from the business trip. “We agreed to the rules when we came here. The Order is doing a lot for us, we shouldn’t cause them trouble.”

“Why would coming to see you cause any trouble?” Chrono turned to continue his search, and saw Rosette sitting in her chair, fists balling into her skirt and head bowed. “They’re treating you like you’re a monster.”

Chrono swallowed. “To them, I  _ am  _ a monster.”

“But you’re not! You take care of me and you help the Elder and you answer all of their questions, and they keep you locked up here!” Her voice was strained. “You already missed Christmas, and now you’re going to miss Easter, too.”

For a moment, Chrono stayed quiet, nervously fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket and shifting his weight on his bare feet, causing the old floor of the cottage to softly creak. He hated when Rosette got like this, and he still didn’t know how to make her feel better. When he was younger, he forced himself to be as calm and accommodating as possible, and the only way he found to do that was to try to numb himself to everything. The emotions he felt were too overwhelming otherwise. So he practiced his smiles and went through the motions, hoping that when he was older he’d have some room to breathe. And when they fled, there was no time to process what had happened to him. By the time the Christophers had found him in Mary’s tomb, his grief had thickened inside him like a sludge, slowly drowning him. He still felt like he was treading in a swamp sometimes, barely keeping his head above water to breathe. How could he take care of her when he couldn’t fix himself?

He took a deep breath and slowly walked forward, like he was trying to get a closer look at a bird without scaring it away. “Easter? Is...that a holy day like Christmas?”

“Holiday. Yeah.” Rosette sniffed and rubbed her nose on her sleeve.

“Does it have the tree again? I liked that.”

“Noooooo. Although we had palm leaves today. You really don’t know?”

Chrono shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, stupid. It’s not your fault you don’t know about this stuff.” She sighed and finally looked back up at him again, giving him a teary-eyed but genuine smile. 

Relief bloomed in Chrono’s chest at her smile, and he smiled back, dragging a stool forward to sit in front of her. “Well...can you tell me about it?”

“Yeah.” She straightened her back as if trying to look older, maybe like one of her teachers. Chrono struggled not to laugh. “Okay, so, remember the Jesus guy?”

“Yeah. Kind of hard not to, he’s everywhere here.”

“Right. Well, Easter is when he rose again.”

“Um. Rose again?”

“In his tomb! Yeah!”

Yikes. Chrono had a feeling he was going to regret knowing this story. “His, uh, tomb? Did he die?”

“Yeah, they crucified him.”

“What’s...crucified?”

“You don’t even know that?!” Rosette looked genuinely shocked. She looked around for a moment, and grabbed a necklace off of the Elder’s work table. Chrono recognized it as part of the Elder’s uniform. “What did you think this was??”

“A necklace?”

“No, you idiot, what’s the pendant?”

Chrono scrunched his eyebrows and stared at the two bars hanging from the chain. “Uh. It’s the symbol for the Order, isn’t it?”

“No! Well, maybe? But why do you think they picked this?”

“It’s...simple? Easy to remember?”

“Chronoooooo, you’re so hopeless, I can’t believe you don’t know this. They hung him from it!”

“From the necklace?!”

“NO! A cross!” Chrono stared at her aghast as she struggled to explain it. “Okay, look, it’s made out of wood, right? Way bigger than this, bigger than a man. They nailed his hands to it and propped him up until he died.”

Chrono’s stomach churned. “You’re making this up. There’s no way that’s real.”

“It’s real! They did it all the time back then!”

“Why? HOW?! You can’t just hang someone by their hands, it would--it would...tear...wouldn’t it?” Oh no, no no no, why did he ask that, he didn’t want to know the answer to that!

“I dunno, but he did! Thomas put his fingers through the holes later.”

“Who did WHAT? What happened to the story about the angels and the sheep and the star and everything?”

“That’s Christmas, when he was born. Waaaaay before this.”

Chrono had thought, after hearing about Christmas, that the human belief system was a lot nicer than what he’d been raised with. He was starting to disagree. He was about to say as much when the kettle started to whistle, giving him a chance to calm down as he unplugged it. Well, now they had hot water, but no mugs...where in the world did they go? He sighed, leaving the hot water behind for now to rejoin Rosette at her seat in the center of the room. “So, um...you celebrate when he was killed?”

“Well. Yeah, but that’s not Easter. That’s Good Friday.”

“Good? ...This has to be a joke.”

“I’m not joking! Why would I joke about this?!”

“There’s no way that you’ve all been wearing minature torture devices around your neck, that’s insane.”

“It’s not--! Ugh!” Rosette leapt from her chair. “Look, it’s  _ good  _ because he did it to save people! And he didn’t stay dead anyway, that’s what Easter’s about, he woke up in his tomb and came back to everyone!”

Chrono’s head was starting to swim. He remembered seeing that cross on Mary’s tomb and the doors closing him in. All this time, he’d been staring at something like that? They’d put something like that on Mary’s coffin?! “How does dying that way save people?”

“It’s...look, you know about sacrifices, right? You’ve heard of those?”

“I. Maybe. That’s the donations people give right?”

“No, no, no, no, no, that’s tithe. You really don’t know anything, do you?”

“How am I supposed to keep track of all this?!”

Rosette sighed. “Okay, okay, listen. Waaaaaaaaay, WAAAAAY back, in days older than my parents, older than you--” Chrono couldn’t suppress his shocked laugh this time and Rosette gave him a dirty look. “--Older than even YOUR parents, they used to set things on fire. Lambs, mostly. It was a gift for God, to show repen...repence….to show that you were sorry.”

Chrono tried not to think too much about a poor baby lamb being set on fire. “Uh. Okay? Why...why the lamb?”

“It’s instead of the people being set on fire. Because they deserve death.”

“...Please tell me you’re exaggerating. Please.”

“Look, everyone does bad things, right? Last week I accidentally spit gum in Kelly’s hair, and I punched Caleb when he called me a witch--”

“You don’t seriously think you deserve to die for that, do you?! That’s awful!”

“Well, NO, but--that’s just how people are. We do bad things. We hurt people. We deserve to be hurt back, but in these old days God allowed them to kill and cook a lamb instead. Does that make sense? Even a little?”

No. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay. So...the thing is, you can’t do that forever, right? Eventually you run out of lambs.”

Yeah, probably, if you had to burn one every time you did anything bad. Chrono would need to kill a lot of lambs just for himself. At least one for every kid at Seventh Bell. One for every Sinner. Probably one for every Pursuer he killed, too...

“So,” Rosette continued, “there needed to be something better. You remember about Christmas, right? That Jesus was God’s son and his mom was the Virgin Mary?”

Chrono nodded, thankful that the name “Mary” didn’t send a jolt through his body when he heard it anymore.

“So he was perfect. He wasn’t like us. He didn’t have sin--he didn’t do bad things. He took care of people, taught them, fed them, even raised them from the dead. That meant he could be a sacrifice instead of a lamb, it’s why they sometimes say he’s the ‘Lamb of God’. So when they wanted to kill him, he let them. There were criminals hanging next to them and he forgave them, told them that they would get to be in Heaven. That’s what he did for everyone! We can go to Heaven when we die because he did that for us.”

“That’s...that’s a lot.”

“Well. Yeah. It’s kinda creepy...but it’s okay, because three days later he was alive, right? And all of his friends got to see him again, and then he floated into the sky and into Heaven. And he’s there now.”

Chrono tried to imagine a man floating into the sky without wings. Was Heaven like the Astral Line? Did Jesus go there? Could you go to the Astral Line with a body? “That’s...uh...that’s a really interesting story. I’m not really sure if I get it…”

“I’m probably not telling it right. It’s in the Bible. I know you like stories, so maybe you could read it some time?”

Maybe. He got the impression that their scriptures had a lot about how horrible demons were, and although he didn’t really disagree, the thought of reading it still made him uncomfortable. That being said, he knew it was important to the people of the Order, and he wanted them to trust him and to help them as much as he could, so maybe it would be good to try.

He remembered that the Elder was using a Bible at some point to cross reference something for a bullet...some sort of inscription or spell from the scriptures. He turned his head to look over at the workstation, where he remembered seeing it last.

The leather-bound book was there, all right. It was currently serving as a coaster for a mug with a painting of a winking woman in a swimsuit and a nun habit.

“Ugh! That’s where they are?!” Chrono rose from his seat and stormed over to the workstation, grabbing the mug off of the ‘holy’ book. He started to shove aside boxes and supplies and piles of papers, discovering all of the hidden cups and mugs. One, two, three, four….seven, seven mugs here on the workstation alone! “This is why we keep getting ants, isn’t it?!”

“Whoa, how are you carrying all those?”

“Um. Badly?” Chrono struggled to get his small fingers around all the handles of the mugs. He still forgot how small he was now. 

“Do you need help?”

“No, no, I’ve got it...I think…”

“No you don’t, don’t be so stubborn. Do you want to wash those? I can take them to the sink with you.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Rosette.”

For a few silent minutes, they split up the mugs between them and walked them over to the sink, and started to wash them. Chrono scrubbed them with soap and rinsed them one by one, then handed them to Rosette to dry with a towel.

Chrono was the first one to speak up. “So...what do you do on Easter? You said something about palm leaves today?”

“Yeah. A week before he was crucified people welcomed him into the city and waved around palm leaves. I guess to celebrate? So one of the priests rode in on a donkey and we waved palms around.” Rosette sighed. “Charlotte kept hitting me on the head with hers.”

“A donkey, huh? That...actually does sound kinda fun. Easter is next week?”

“A week from today, yup.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Probably a boring sermon at first. Which is terrible, because they’re already going to make us go to one on Good Friday, and it’s probably going to be really gloomy. But afterwards we all get to have lamb for lunch, and then we get to do the egg hunt!”

“What’s an egg hunt?”

Rosette beamed as bright as the sunshine streaming in through the window behind the sink. “Well, the older nuns and priests are going to paint eggs, and hide them all over the grounds. Then we all get to try to find them and put them in baskets. Some of the others that have been here longer have said it’s tricky but really fun, since there’s so many places you can hide them here.”

“Oh...okay.” Chrono was distracted from rinsing his mug for a moment. “How do the eggs figure in with the whole...torture...and rising from the tomb...thing?”

Rosette grabbed the mug out of Chrono’s hand to dry it. “Well, it’s because, um...obviously...it’s about...uh…” Rosette paused, staring at the mug. Chrono glanced over and realized, to his horror, that she was studying the illustration of the winking woman. He snatched it out of her hands and quickly hid it in the cupboard.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, the Elder is terrible. What’s the eggs about again?”

To Chrono’s relief, the distraction worked. Rosette paused, crossing her arms and glancing up at the ceiling. “Well, um...actually, I don’t know why we do the eggs. But it’s the best part, so I don’t really want to ask about it, just in case they realize it’s weird and don’t do it.”

That made Chrono laugh a little, despite himself. “It actually does sound fun.” He picked out two of the recently cleaned mugs and set them next to the kettle. “What do you want to drink this time, coffee or tea?”

“Tea! The fruity one. With lots of honey!”

Chrono smiled. He’d guessed it would be that one. He started to fix their tea, digging around for the leaves to steep in the water.

“Hey, Chrono?”

“Yes, Rosette?”

“Do demons have holidays?”

Chrono paused. For a moment, his gut reaction was to dodge the question. But it was a pretty innocent question, so he figured he should try to answer it truthfully. “Sort of. We have stories, like your scriptures. And we have ceremonies. Nothing as fun as egg hunts...I guess something like the ‘boring’ sermons you were talking about.”

“Nothing fun at all?”

“I mean, sometimes we have feasts, or...symbolic stuff, like the palm leaves, I guess? But the egg hunt sounds like a game, and we didn’t have anything like that. They were too serious for that sort of thing.”

“What about birthdays?”

Chrono shook his head. He’d learned about the concept of a birthday a few months ago, when Rosette turned 12. He didn’t know about the presents until Rosette mentioned it the day before, and stayed up all night learning how to bake a cake for her, since he couldn’t buy her anything and didn’t have time to make something more elaborate.

“No, we don’t really do that. There’s a few ages that are celebrated as milestones, and we have the Tu--”

A chill went up Chrono’s spine. The Tuning. How did he almost mention that so casually? Before he could stop it, the memory of Aion curled up on the floor in front of the Tuning pool sprang into his mind. The color of Aion’s hair drained away as he screamed on the floor, in pain and helpless, separated from Chrono. And then the guards suddenly drew weapons, and--

Blood. Screaming. They were grabbing him, holding a sword to his throat, and he could see Aion being surrounded by the Elders, and he tried to shout for Aion to run, to do something, ANYTHING, as they pulled him away--

Fire, everything was on fire, it smelled like the feast they had the night before the Tuning, but it wasn’t rich meats that were cooking this time--it was people, Sinners, the kids and the injured, and Chrono picked up a chunk of meat in his arms and realized with horror it was a child, burned beyond recognition, and the fire was surrounding him too, burning away his hair and clothes, but he barely noticed then, because he could see the Pursuers through the flames and he realized at that moment that THEY did this, THEY killed the children, and they deserved to die, they should die, he’d do it, he’d kill them, he’ll rip them apart and crush their skulls and kill them kill them kill them KILLTHEMKILL--

“Chrono? Chrono? Hey, Chrono!”

Rosette had him by the shoulders, shaking him. He shuddered. “Rosette?”

“Are you okay? What’s wrong? You were talking, but then you dropped the mug and just...you don’t look good. Did you hurt your hand?”

Chrono looked down at his hands. The mug was under them, on the floor, broken. Hot water and soggy leaves pooled around his feet. He vaguely registered pain in his feet and his left hand, like something off in a dream. Wait, were they burned? He stumbled a few steps back to get his feet out of the water, wincing. “Sorry. Guess dropping the mug gave me a shock, heh.”

“Does it hurt? Are you really okay? H-here, let me--let me fix it--”

Rosette’s hand rose to the watch around her neck. Chrono quickly reached out and grabbed her hand away. “No! No. It’s just a few little burns, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. It’s not worth wasting your soul over, it’ll heal.”

Rosette was looking at his burned hand. He hid it away behind his back. She dropped her head down to look at his feet instead, and there was nothing he could do to hide those. His toes were reddening. “But if I unsealed it a little, you wouldn’t even need to wait.”

“It’s fine. It barely even hurts. Just a little sting. Please, Rosette.”

Rosette hesitated, then nodded. Chrono dropped her hand with a sigh of relief. “Thanks. I’ll clean this up, sorry. You can have the other mug.”

“Nuh-uh. I’ll make you a mug. You’ll just hurt yourself again.”

“It’s fine, Rosette.”

“If you won’t let me heal you, then let me take care of you another way! Go sit down and wait for your tea!” Rosette grabbed the towel she’d been using to dry the mugs and wet it with water, squeezed it out, and handed it to him. “And wrap your hand with this! It’ll help! I think. A-and I’ll get a pot of water for you to put your feet in!”

Chrono knew from her tone of voice that she wasn’t going to back down on this one. He was a little worried that she didn’t even know how to make tea, but he knew better than to argue with her. He sighed and returned to his chair. Rosette rushed over with the pot, ordered him to dunk his feet in the cold water, and ran back to work on the tea. Silence filled the room again as Rosette worked on his tea. Chrono did his best not to watch--he knew if he did, he’d have a hard time not fighting with her to let him help.

“Hey.” Rosette was the one to break the silence this time. “Did you know it’s been about a year since we first met?”

“Really? It’s been that long?” Chrono turned to look at Rosette. She was carefully grasping the kettle to pour the water into the new mug--a red one. Rosette always picked red for Chrono. Because of his eyes, is what she told him when he asked.

“Yep.” Rosette smiled to herself. “It’s easy to remember because it was a couple weeks after his birthday.”

Chrono’s heart sank. “...Joshua’s birthday?”

To Chrono’s surprise, Rosette didn’t look too sad. Wistful, maybe, but not sad. “Mmhmm. April 9th. Easter’s date changes every year, but Joshua’s birthday is usually close to it. This year it’s the Friday after Easter. I was still a baby, so I don’t remember, but they told me that he was born on Good Friday. That’s why they named him Joshua.”

“I thought it was after the guy in the Bible? The one that stopped the sun? Did he do that on Good Friday?”

“No, different Joshua.” Rosette grabbed a jar of honey and started to scoop heaping spoonfuls of honey into the mug. “It’s a different translation for Jesus’s name. Joshua was born on the day he died, and our last name comes from ‘Christ’ something, so...I don’t know, I guess they thought it was funny?” Rosette laughed. “Our parents must’ve been really weird. Can you imagine? Naming your kid after God? No wonder he got wings like that.”

How could she just talk about him so easily? She seemed so strong, and she was so  _ young. _ Chrono couldn’t talk about anyone he lost the same way. Whenever he tried, he choked. “...I didn’t realize it had been so long already.” He paused, looking down at his hand wrapped in the damp towel. “...I’m sorry. I should’ve been working harder.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“I still don’t have any clue where Aion took him. It’s been long enough that I should have something...and they’ve been asking me questions, trying to figure it out, and I’ve tried to tell them what I could, but…”

Chrono didn’t see Rosette storm over to him. Before he knew it, a mug was slammed down onto the table next to him. “Don’t be stupid! You’ve been locked up all this time, what do you think you could do?”

Chrono jumped and his feet splashed in the water. “I don’t know, more than what I’ve been doing. Maybe I’m forgetting something, or--”

“Uggghhh, you’re so mopey sometimes. How can you stand it? Even Joshua didn’t get this bad and he was sick all the time!” Rosette shook her head and settled back down in her chair, holding her own mug. “What do you really think you can do like this? They won’t let you do anything! I know that as soon as I get you out of here you’ll get all sorts of stuff done. You learn things really quick and you work really hard. They’re just hurting themselves by not letting you help! It’s so stupid.”

“I don’t really learn things that well.”

“You learned how to bake a cake in a day when you’d never used an oven before. Every time I try to bake I just burn stuff.”

“...I guess.”

“It’s true! Just drink your tea, it’ll make you feel better. I made it extra special for you, you know.”

Chrono sighed and took a sip from his mug. He was immediately overwhelmed by a wave of sweetness that made his stomach lurch. He fought back a gag and took another sip. All he could taste was honey, honey, and more honey. Was this even tea? How much did she put in?!

“Good, right?”

“Uh, yeah, wow. Really sweet!”

“Yup! You need sugar to take the pain away. I always try to have at least five sugar cubes whenever I scrape my knee. It helps!”

“Mm. Yeah…” Chrono forced down another sip. “I can’t even feel pain through how much honey I’m tasting…”

“Good, it’s working.”

Rosette grinned at him, and even through the sugar drowning his taste buds and the sting of his burns Chrono found it easy to smile back. She was a mess--stubborn, clumsy, full of ridiculous stories he was never really sure were true--but she was  _ his _ mess. It’s why he could never turn her away when she knocked on the window, even if he worried she’d get in trouble again. Every time she was here, it was easier to keep his head above water.

“Thank you, Rosette. For everything. And um...Merry Easter?”

“No, happy Easter! Merry is only for Christmas!”

Chrono laughed, shaking his head. “Okay, okay, sorry. Happy Easter, Rosette.”


End file.
